Dance of Fire (23 page)

I couldn't think of anything to say. Why had I never put that together? I'd been so terrified of Josef, and so ­desperate to get away, that I never even bothered to ask Erik about the fake names and papers he provided for me.

‘I think Erik really is in love with you, but . . . he's got a personal stake in all this. He was the only one to survive that car wreck. He doesn't talk about it any more, but he is certain that a group of dancers are to blame.'

‘The dark dancers?' I asked, leaning on the desk for support.

‘Yeah. Those are the ones, from the Royal Court. That's why I think . . . I think you should withdraw from the competition.'

‘I can't do that,' I said to him. ‘I have to know . . . whether or not I can win this. It means too much to me.'

‘I thought you'd say something like that.' Hal shrugged. ‘You'll do what you have to do, but if you find yourself getting scared . . . I'm here for you. And not in some I-want-to-be-your-boyfriend kind of way.' He shook his head. ‘I'll help you, any way I can.'

‘Thanks,' I said, and I hugged him. ‘I'm glad you're on my side.'

‘Moving in on my girl?' Erik said from the doorway. His hair was damp and standing up on his head; he'd towelled it dry but hadn't combed it yet. He was smiling.

Hal blushed. ‘Wishing her luck today, though she's not going to need it.'

‘No,' Erik said. ‘The one thing she won't ever need is luck.'

I don't need to tell you, diary, that his intense grin was a little scary.

But I can worry about Erik later. First I have a competition to win.

Chapter Sixteen

It was nearly six when the cab pulled up alongside the thick stone wall. Night had fallen, and a dusting of snow fell from the sky.

‘Here you are, love,' the driver said, raising a bushy ­eyebrow. ‘I hope you know what you're doing.'

‘Me too,' Vanessa said, handing him the fare.

Vanessa had spent the afternoon practising her contempor­ary solo, alone in a rehearsal studio. It was hard to ­concentrate; she kept being distracted by thoughts of Zep, of Justin dancing with Svetya somewhere, her leotard clinging to every curve. Vanessa tried to shake the image from her head, but she kept drifting back to Justin touching, holding, admiring another girl, and there wasn't anything she could do to stop it.

But she had to focus. Margaret – or Margot – had been on the Royal Court roster. Which meant that her sister had probably won the same competition, so Vanessa would have to win as well. Once she had a place in the Royal Court Company, she would be able to find the necrodancers – and she could find out what happened to her sister. Maybe Enzo would finally introduce her to other members of the Lyric Elite, who could help.

After a quick dinner alone in the nearly deserted cafeteria, Vanessa had snuck out of the lodge.

Now, as she watched the black cab drive away up Swain's Lane, she wondered if she'd made a huge mistake. The old wall along the pavement stretched as far as she could see in either direction. Near where she'd been let out stood a Gothic gatehouse, with a windowed spire and an iron gate. A small metal plate read:
highgate cemetery
.

This couldn't be the right place. Vanessa blew a lock of hair away from her face and looked again at Zep's text.
Swain's Lane and Highgate. 6 p.m. Make sure you're not followed
. The sign on the corner read:
swain's lane
, but he hadn't mentioned that they'd be meeting in a cemetery.

‘You've got to be kidding me,' she said to herself, and sent Zep a text.
A cemetery? Srsly?

She waited, snowflakes catching on her eyelashes. She couldn't see anything through the bars of the gate except a cobbled pathway and the bare branches of trees.

Her phone vibrated.
There's something you have to see here. Meet me in the west wing (left) at the end.

Vanessa slipped her phone into her coat. She couldn't see any gatekeeper. Other than a black bird perched on top of the spire, there was no sign of life. A heavy chain wound around the bars, but upon closer examination she saw the gate was ajar.

She slipped inside and walked quickly up the path. Along with the occasional lamp post, barren trees lined the way, their trunks as gaunt as skeletons. She saw tombstones along the hills and under the trees, interspersed with creamy statues of angels and saints and lions and other beasts, all covered with a light layer of snow.

Suddenly the path came to a dead end. A circle of pillared mausoleums loomed tall around her, their stony facades cracked and worn with age. One building in particular caught her attention, its columns topped with a frieze of carved dancers and angels.

A twig snapped, and a figure emerged from the shadows.

Zep.

His metallic eyes shone, the wind sweeping his black hair across his face.

Vanessa sighed. ‘You could have said something instead of creeping up on me like that –'

‘I'm glad you came,' he said. ‘I didn't think you'd ever trust me again.'

‘I don't, but I came anyway,' Vanessa said. ‘What are we doing here?'

He flinched at her words. ‘After Josef and Hilda died, I came to London to find the Lyric Elite. Because of what
happened in New York, I thought I might know something that could help track down this thing we set loose into the world.'

‘So where are they?' Vanessa said, looking around at the empty cemetery.

‘If you mean the Lyric Elite, I never managed to talk to them,' Zep said. ‘I couldn't find any trace of them.'

‘What do you mean, you couldn't find them?' How hard could they be to find, if Vanessa was rehearsing with one of them every day. Or was Zep lying again?

‘This is all I found,' he said, spreading his arms. ‘Dance families that had been Lyric Elite ages ago. Their legacies go back centuries, but these families have all died out.' He scuffed his toe in the snow, tracing a perfect circle, the graceful motion reminding her that in spite of everything, he was a highly trained dancer, until recently a senior at NYBA. ‘All but one.'

He gently smacked his palm against the blackened steel door of the tomb before them. The structure was quite large, Vanessa realised, like a small house. The family name carved into the lintel was so worn and stained with watermarks that it was impossible to read from where she was standing.

‘This one?' Vanessa asked.

Zep nodded. ‘Come on.' He pushed open the door and disappeared inside.

‘Wait,' Vanessa said. She still wasn't sure what she thought of Zep, and now he was leading her into a mausoleum. The perfect place to leave a body –
hers
.

‘I won't hurt you,' Zep's voice said from the shadows, ‘but you need to see what I found inside.'

‘What do you mean?' Vanessa said, her voice unsteady. A dark thought loomed in her mind, one she hadn't allowed herself to consider until now. She suddenly wished she wasn't here. ‘Margaret?' Was her sister's body inside?

‘Don't worry,' Zep said. ‘She's not here. Come in – I'll show you.'

Barely containing her apprehension, she looked up again, and this time could make out the letters engraved above the entrance:
adams
. Just like Margot Adams, the name her sister adopted when she came to London.

Vanessa stepped across the threshold and into the dark interior.

Zep removed a flashlight from his coat and shone it ahead. The mausoleum was actually just the top of a staircase. She followed Zep down the stairs to a stone cavern lined with marble columns. The air was stale and cold. Zep turned left past a chamber flanked by two ancient statues of ballerinas to a room at the end of a dusty pathway.

‘I found out your sister was using a stage name: Margot Adams.'

‘Yes,' Vanessa said. ‘I discovered the same thing.'

‘It turns out that Margot Adams was actually a teenager from a dance family who died in a suspicious car crash a few years ago,' Zep continued. ‘If she'd lived, she would have been about eighteen, taking her place on the international dance stage. She was in the car with her parents, both of whom also
perished. The strange thing was, they never found Margot's body. The fire burned so hot that identifying the remains was near impossible.'

‘Gross,' Vanessa said, sticking her hands into her pockets to warm them up. ‘What does all of this have to do with my ­sister?'

Instead of answering, Zep carefully pushed open the door. Inside was a circular chamber holding two stone caskets, each guarded by a statue of a male dancer. Behind each casket was a marble plaque: an urn wall, holding the cremated remains of the dead. A name was etched into one of the plaques, but the second was blank, as if waiting for the name of the only remaining child in the family.

‘The thing is . . .' Zep said, ‘she died
twice
.'

Vanessa pulled back. ‘What?'

‘A girl named Margot Adams jumped to her death off Tower Bridge two and a half years ago,' he said softly.

Vanessa searched for words. ‘Do you think –'

‘It was your sister?' He paused, letting the question linger. ‘Yes.'

Vanessa gasped. ‘No,' she said. ‘Margaret wouldn't kill ­herself –'

‘I'm sorry, Vanessa,' Zep said, ‘but it's the truth.'

Vanessa couldn't comprehend his words: she'd heard him, but she couldn't wrap her mind around what it meant. Her sister was dead. She repeated it to herself, trying to grasp how it could be true. Vanessa had been certain that Margaret was alive; she was her sister, made of the same blood, their
memories crafted from the same past, their futures woven together, inextricable. Even since her disappearance, she had been a guiding force, leading Vanessa forward. How could she die without Vanessa knowing it? Vanessa steadied herself on the cold stone, feeling as if she was about to collapse. Margaret had taken her own life.

The more she thought about it though, the stranger it sounded. Margaret would never give up; her fragile appearance was deceptive. She would tiptoe on to the stage, her figure so delicate it seemed made of porcelain, and then transform, leaping in a mesmerising trail of light, pulling the spotlight with her. Margaret couldn't be dead. She was out there somewhere, blazing through the night like a falling star.

‘Why did you bring me here, Zep?' Vanessa said.

‘Almost everyone in this Adams family died, right?' Zep said. ‘But before Margaret's suicide, someone signed out the mausoleum key. A young woman. I thought we should find out why.'

The dust and grit on the floor crunched beneath her shoes as she walked forward.
margot adams,
read the plaque on the wall.

It wasn't until Vanessa touched her hand to its cold surface that she noticed something peculiar. The marble lid of the urn wall was cracked and sitting slightly crooked. Someone had broken into it.

‘Zep.' She spun around. ‘Did you . . . ? Did you break into someone's –?'

‘No,' he said. ‘But that's only because someone else did it first. There are no ashes inside. Have a look.'

Zep prised out the lid and set it aside. He shone the beam of the flashlight into the cavity.

Vanessa could see a flash of red and a tangle of browns and blacks.
Clothes
, Vanessa realised, recognising a sleeve, a buckle, a familiar lapel: Margaret's wool coat.

She reached in and pulled out a bundle of Margaret's things. Her red silk dress, her favourite gold earrings and her oldest sweater, the one she'd worn every day at home.

Then she lifted a Ziploc bag tucked beneath the rest. Inside were two passports: an American one in the name of Margaret Adler, and a British one belonging to Margot Adams. Between them was a tattered two-and-a-half-year-old lottery ticket with six numbers. Someone had scribbled
Prince Hal
across the top. ‘Why would she save this?' Vanessa asked.

‘Maybe it's a winner.' Zep examined it. ‘Prince Hal is from
Henry V
, right? Maybe she bought it the night she saw the play. Who knows?'

Also inside the bag were a few pieces of jewellery that Margaret had always cherished: a pair of diamond earrings their parents had given her one Christmas, a bracelet and an opal ring that had belonged to their grandmother.

‘Vanessa?' Zep said. ‘Are you OK?'

‘I just – the demon told me, when it was in my head, that Margaret is alive.'

‘Did it?' Zep asked. He looked down at the lottery ticket in his hand. ‘There's no trusting a demon, I can tell you that much. It will woo you with whatever it thinks you want to hear.'

‘Maybe she became someone else? Or . . .' Vanessa trailed off.
Or was her
new
life over too?
Margot Adams had died twice, Zep had said. ‘If she killed herself, why waste time stashing her new forged documents here?'

‘Maybe she didn't want the girl's identity any more,' Zep said.

‘Or maybe,' Vanessa said, ‘it wasn't just some random girl.'

When they emerged from the mausoleum, the moon was covered by clouds, and all Vanessa could see were the thick white snowflakes floating down from the sky.

‘I'm sorry, Vanessa,' Zep said. ‘Probably not the final image you want of your sister.'

‘It's not,' she whispered. ‘I saw her dancing this morning. The demon used an image of her when it got into my head.'

Zep immediately looked concerned. ‘What do you mean,
it got into your head
?'

‘This morning, in rehearsal. A vision came to me of a girl dancing on an empty stage. At first I thought it was my sister, but really it was the demon, so I pushed it out.'